Essar townships recognised among 75 "less cash" townships

Townships that were recognized have completed deployment of a digital payment acceptance infrastructure

More than 80% of the total number of transactions were done through digital modes of payments

Essar townships went cashless using digital payment solution developed by The Mobile Wallet and RBL Bank

Mumbai, 14 April 2017: Two Essar townships in Gujarat, at Hazira (near Surat) and Vadinar (near Jamnagar), were today recognised as among 75 townships pan-India that are “Less Cash Townships”. The announcement was made at an event in Nagpur that was presided over by the Honourable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi. Later, speaking at the event, the PM appreciated the townships for their efforts in furthering the Digital India initiative.

The government has set a target of 2,500 crore digital transactions during the current financial year. These 75 townships are likely to generate over 1.5 lakh digital transactions every day, thereby leading to about 5.5 crore digital transactions in a year.

The townships were selected on the basis of a third-party assessment by Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC). To qualify as a less cash township, the conditions were:

The township must have completed deployment of a payment acceptance infrastructure, and all the families residing there would have to covered under training programmes

More than 80% of the total number of transactions must have been done through digital modes of payments during the review period.

Of the two Essar townships, the Hazira township, also known as Nand Niketan, is India’s first private sector township to go cashless with the help of The Mobile Wallet (TMW), a Mumbai-based financial technology company. The Wallet is powered by RBL Bank Ltd. The pilot project involved the adoption of TMW’s twin offering—the smartphone-based TMW app and the Mastercard-enabled TMW and RBL Bank co-branded Prepaid Card, which has almost universal acceptance at all outlets and billers that accept Mastercard in India.

So far, the two townships have seen:

More than 25,000 TMW app downloads

Over 10,000 TMW-RBL Bank Prepaid Cards issued

An average of Rs 5 lakh of digital transactions executed everyday

More than 3,000 daily transactions executed using the TMW app and prepaid card.

More than 60 merchants in and around the Townships accept payments through the TMW app and TMW-RBL Bank Prepaid Card

About Essar: Essar Global Fund Limited is an investment fund managed by its investment manager, Essar Capital Limited. The Fund is a global investor, controlling a number of world-class assets diversified across the core sectors of Energy, Metals & Mining, Infrastructure (comprising ports and EPC businesses) and Services (primarily comprising shipping and BPO businesses). The aggregated revenues of the Fund’s portfolio companies total US$27 billion. The Fund’s portfolio companies employ over 60,000 people across four continents.